COMPETENCY11: STUDENT PERSONNEL

Competency 11: Student Personnel

11.2 Knowledge of principles of discipline, student control, etc.
Related Tasks:
11.2.2Analyze discipline referral and suspension data for a school year to identify
the nature and frequency of student misbehavior. Based on findings,
recommend a plan to reduce most common form of misconduct.
Narrative Description: Analysis of Student Behavior and Propose Solutions
Review student behavior referrals based on certain criterion: type of behavior,
gender, age, time, and location. After identifying these patterns, create classroom
sets of proposed corrections based on student need.
Smart Goal: By April of 2015, I will identify specific patterns in student
demographics as well as common precursors to behavior within the Academy
setting. These findings will then be recorded along with a reference tool for teachers
for appropriate interventions based on these needs.
I.

Description and Rationale of the Project:

Using the Positive Behavior Intervention System (PBiS), Woodland Park Academy
created a school improvement goal to limit referrals written on a daily basis to the
national average of five per day or lower. While reports show that this has been
accomplished, major referrals have increased steadily for the last three years. In
addition, only a third of the current student body has contributed to referrals in the
current year. These statistics imply that PBis implementation, which targets all Tier
1 students, is not enough to reduce the occurrences of chronic major behavior that
is exhibited by a third of the student body.
In order to adequately address these issues, it was first important to perform an
analysis of the following: demographics, times, locations, and types of behavior.
Once this had been accomplished, it was clear to draw conclusions about conditions
that contribute to behavior. It was clear from this process that African American
males were more likely to receive referrals for, more referrals were written in the
middle part of the day (from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.), and the majority of referrals were
written in the classroom by the classroom teacher. The top three referral behaviors
were disrespect, defiance, and disruption.
After this had been discovered, research was then performed to determine how to
deter these behaviors. The district has provided training to staff to understand
poverty. While teachers are more aware of the social norms that students come to
school with, it was still unclear of how to bridge this gap with students. Providing a
list of scripts, pre-corrects, and positive interactions with students is a simple way to
help teachers create a dialogue of respect while still being able to maintain
authority in the classroom.

COMPETENCY11: STUDENT PERSONNEL

Secondly, the peak behavior seemed to be during lunch which is in the classroom
with classroom teachers. Having students remain with the teacher creates a
situation for the teacher to be behavior monitor as opposed to instructional leader.
It also creates an atmosphere of the classroom being a place for socialization as
opposed to education. Knowing this, it was my recommendation to move lunch back
into the lunchroom to provide students and teachers a location for socialization to
take place and create a mindset that the classroom is a place for instruction.
Furthermore, it was also my recommendation for administration to make a wholeschool positive behavior effort during this time. Because administration feels that
1:00 p.m. seems to be the biggest behavior time of the day, I suggested making an
announcement about positive behavior that had been witnessed or providing some
character education script.
Last, it would benefit the school to hire behavior intervention staff. At the beginning
of the school year, both the position of counselor and Dean of Students were
eliminated. This elimination caused administration to have to perform these tasks.
Spending at-risk dollars to provide support to Tier 3 students would help to take the
burden of discipline out of the office as well as create consistency with addressing
student behavior.
II. Project Outcomes
At the current time, daily announcements during peak hours of behavior have
begun to take place. Each day, the principal will go into a classroom and announce
the student creed. It is unclear at this time whether or not this measure is effective
with redirecting student focus and decreasing negative behavior.
Discussion has begun with the administrative team about moving lunch back into
the gymnasium in order to eliminate the dynamic of the teacher being behavior
monitor and the classroom being a place for educational purposes. This is
particularly important in grades that do not have recess.
Finally, a compilation of researched interventions has been created and released for
staff distribution. These interventions target African-American students, defiant,
disrespectful, and disruptive behaviors in particular because of their frequency.
Interventions are brief, simple, direct, and intentional so they are manageable for
each teacher in each grade level.
III. Lessons Learned
Behavior is an important facet of all schools across the nation. Being able to use
behavior data to make adjustments to school policies and procedures in order to
decrease negative student behavior in the school is crucial to administration. In this
experience, analyzing the data was able to reveal some changes that needed to be
implemented with staff intervention processes, scheduling, and whole-school
initiatives.

COMPETENCY11: STUDENT PERSONNEL

In conjunction with the shadowing competency, this processed allowed me the

ability to access the need for resources (particularly in terms of staff) to address
these behaviors and create consistency when addressing behavior. The breakdown
of students that are contributing to this behavior allowed me to be able to
determine that at-risk money could be used to address most of the students that
were exhibiting behavior as almost 100% of students contributing to referrals fall
into the Tier 3 response to intervention category.
One major difficulty is the limited space within the school and scheduling conflict
between physical education and lunch times. My proposed solution would be to
combine classes, and have larger lunch groups in order to shorten the amount of
conflict. Something that administration has also not considered is asking teachers to
provide feedback about this time and its contribution to referrals. As a teacher, I am
aware of the negative feelings toward lunch in the classroom and how behavior
spikes as a result. However, when speaking to administration it is clear that this has
not been communicated as effectively as it could be.
Furthermore, I think it is important to create a dialogue about the code-switching
that needs to be taught to students and how to do so. This term refers to speaking
with students about the norms in school while still respecting norms from their
personal background. Part of this process includes giving teachers specific
interventions that can be used to target behavior while considering cultural
influences of the students.
Moving forward, if I were a principal I would make a concentrated effort to support
teachers with behavior. I would ask for input with the discipline model and expect
that a behavior committee would provide the staff with researched interventions
and training in order to be effective classroom managers. I would also hope to have
adequate personnel resources to address student behavior, and seek out creative
solutions to provide this support should it not exist. In the end, teachers that feel
that they have the necessary tools to handle student behavior effectively are the
biggest asset to decreasing negative student behavior.
Michigan Administrative Standard 4.1 states that principals understand and can
collaborate with faculty and community members by collecting and analyzing
information pertinent to the improvement of the schools educational environment.
This process has allowed me to gain experience with this area, and in particular do
so considering cultural influences and create targeted and specific interventions.